Captain Kathryn Janeway and the other officers present on the bridge, watched in amazement as the Starship Voyager approached an unusual spatial formation. A nebula, but much larger and more colourful then any of them had ever seen.
"Remarkable!" Janeway couldn't hold back the smile that crept over her face, as she stared wide-eyed at bright blues, purples, oranges, and greens that spread out in all directions.
"I've never seen anything like it!" Harry Kim glanced down at his consoles in disbelief. "Captain, it's nearly three times larger then any nebula that I've ever heard of."
The Captain rose from her chair and walked closer to the viewscreen. She came to a stop just behind where Lieutenant Tom Paris sat. He too was mesmerized by the oversized phenomenon.
"Can you bring us in closer Lieutenant?"
"Sure thing, Captain!" Paris answered.
"If you are suggesting that we enter the nebula, may I remind you of the last time we tried." Tuvok, Voyager's Vulcan chief of security inquired.
"I don't intend to enter it Tuvok, I merely wish to take a closer look." Janeway's smile still hadn't faded from her lips.
"Captain!" Kim spoke up. "I'm reading abnormally high amounts of energy from inside the nebula. It's almost pure energy in there!" If I may say so Captain, I don't think we should get to close to this thing."
"Noted, Mr. Kim, " the Captain replied. "Paris, this is close enough."
"Aye, Captain!" Paris nodded. As the lieutenant brought Voyager to a slow stop, the ship was violently rocked to one side nearly knocking Janeway off her feet.
"Damage report!" Janeway called out, as she made her way back to her Captain's chair. The ship rocked again more violently.
"Shields at 80% and holding." The Vulcan replied.
"Get us out of here Mr. Paris!"
"I'm trying, Captain, but it seems we are stuck in some sort of energy wave." He paused and turned around to face the Captain. "We're being pulled inside the nebula!"
---
Janeway opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor, Chakotay leaning over her. She looked around as he helped her up. The bridge was dark, but otherwise normal. The other officers were also waking up and staggering to their feet.
"Damage report, Mr. Tuvok!"
"Shields are at 100%, Captain. There doesn't appear to be any damage to the ship. However, all holodeck systems, replicators, weapons, and engines are off line."
Janeway triggered her communicator.
"Janeway to B'Elanna Torres. Can you get our engines back online?"
"Negative Captain! I don't understand." She sounded frustrated and out of breath. "The warp-core is dead and we have been drained of our entire dilithium supply. We're not going anywhere, Captain...for a long while."
Great! First we get thrown to the other side of the galaxy and now we get stuck inside a nebula.
"The Delta Flyers have dilithium. B'Elanna can you..."
"I've already tried, Captain! They've been drained as well."
Captain Janeway sighed. After Voyager became stranded in the Delta Quadrant, her mission was to get her crew back to Earth. Nothing would stop her from that mission. Not even this.
"Chakotay, you're with me! Tuvok, you have the bridge!"
---
"Where is it?" B'Elanna Torres stormed around her quarters, frustrated and angry. Tom tried desperately to calm her down before she became violent. Too late!
"You're not helping much!" She picked up a vase and threw it at him. Paris fumbled for it, but it slipped and fell. Shattering on impact.
"B'Elanna, do me a favour. Stay calm!"
The half Klingon threw something else, but this time Tom was ready.
"B'Elanna please..."
The half Klingon fell silent. Her face was pale and she wobbled slightly on her feet. Tom caught her before she fell. He brushed hair away from her eyes.
"B'Elanna? What's wrong?"
"I...I don't know. I feel really strange all of a sudden."
B'Elanna shuddered and let out a soft, weak cry. Tom felt so helpless. Without the doctor there wasn't much he could do for her.
"Computer! Two to beam straight to sickbay."
"Unable to comply. Transporters are off-line." The familiar female voice responded.
B'Elanna fidgeted in Tom's arms and he let go. She backed away, her eyes filled with confusion.
"Tom...?" She let out before she disappeared.
"Computer! Locate B'Elanna Torres." Tom asked frantically.
"B'Elanna Torres is no longer aboard Voyager."
"How many more are unaccounted for?"
"There are 87 crew members no longer aboard Voyager."
"What?"
"There are 87--"
"I heard you!"
---
Ensign Joshua Naiven, a junior officer, looked at the dead warp core in Engineering, a blank look on his face. He turned and faced two other junior officers that slowly shuffled about.
"What's the point? We are never going to go anywhere. We're going to stay here forever and slowly die of starvation or affixation. Or perhaps we will be so overcome by boredom and hunger we will start murdering each other. The Mighty Starship Voyager. The only ship in Starfleet history who's crew died of cannibalism."
"Oh, shut up, will you! The Captain ordered us to keep working no matter what the outcome looks like." One of the other officers complained. "Now grab that tool box for me, would you!"
The young Ensign grumbled something to himself and reached up to get the tool box, which up until now, he could reach quite easily. Now, standing on his tip-toes, he couldn't reach at all.
"Did you raise the shelf?"
The other officer looked oddly at him.
"No! Why?"
"I can't reach!" Joshua looked angrily up at the shelf.
"I'll get it!" The other officer chuckled and went to grab the tool box, but was also no where close to reaching it.
"What the...!?!"
"What's going on here?"
---
The strange changes to Voyager's crew began almost immediately after the disappearances. Even Captain Janeway noticed changes in herself. Her crew was...shrinking.
"Mr. Paris, you are relieved of duty. Please report to your quarters."
"Yea! Bedy-by time!"
The Captain hoped she didn't hear what she thought she heard the Lieutenant say.
"Captain?" Tuvok asked. "May I be relieved of duty as well?"
"Sorry, Tuvok. I need you on the bridge."
The Vulcan pouted.
"I want my blankie!"
---
"Who's there?" Seven of Nine called out into the darkened cargo bay. She stepped off her regenerator and looked around the room. A figure poked their head up from behind a large crate by the far wall. Seven recognized who it was.
"Naomi Wildman!" She cocked her head to the side in her usual questioning glare, her hands rested behind her back. Slowly the child emerged and walked toward the former Borg. She held tightly to her blue stuffed toy. Flotter, which Neelix had replicated for her after her favourite holostory character.
"I'm scared!"
"Elaborate!"
"First we get stuck in a nebula, then people start disappearing, and now they are all changing."
Seven went to say something, but what came out was a cry of shock as a strange sensation filled her body. A cold, tingling feeling.
Seven helplessly watched as her Borg technology rapidly started "growing" back on her. Then the sensation stopped. She was not only Borg again, but younger and all her memories of being an older adult, flashed away.
Seven of Nine looked at the young girl in front of her.
"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
---
Correction...Voyager's crew was not shrinking, it was growing younger. Already, Chakotay, Harry Kim, Seven of Nine, Captain Janeway, and more had reverted back to their teen years. The rest of the remaining crew were even younger. Naomi Wildman, however, already being a child, had aged.
---
A seventeen year old Kathryn Janeway sat in her ready room glaring at a female, not much younger then she was, that stood in front of her.
"A Borg!?!"
"Yes Cap...Kathryn. Her name is Seven of Nine, but I don't think that she will harm anyone."
Kathryn remembered hearing about the Borg. A cold, heartless species that assimilates people to expand their collective. She had never known the Borg to be good and they never traveled alone, so she couldn't take her chances.
"Red alert!"
"Really Kathryn! I don't think that will be necessary."
"Just in case!" Kathryn smiled at the other female. "What did you say your name was again?"
"Naomi. Naomi Wildman."
"Well, Naomi, are you any good with children? Since we don't know where all the adults went, I'm trying to gather as many people as I can to look after the younger ones. Would you be willing?"
Naomi nodded.
---
Naomi Wildman entered the Officer's Lounge into a room full of screaming children. By now, she was in her mid twenties and the only adult aboard Voyager. She was not only in charge of a large group of children ages ten and under, she was in charge of an entire ship. In a sense, she was the Captain and her mission was to get these children home.
"Tommy stole my toy!" A crying child came up to Naomi. Harry Kim?
The child guided her to another little boy, who sat playing with a small toy starship, making it dive and twirl through the air.
"Tom Paris!"
The young boy looked up, frozen in his spot.
"Did you take his toy?"
Tommy shook his head, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Yes you did!" Harry yelled.
"No I didn't!" Tommy stood up and yelled back.
"Yes you did!"
"No I didn't!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"Enough!" Naomi knelt down to the children's level. "Share!"
She looked over at a young Vulcan boy that sat against the wall. He was the oldest now, but for how long?
"Tuvok? Can you watch everybody? I will be right back."
The ten year old nodded.
Naomi was just out the door, when she felt a little tap on her arm. She turned and stared down at a tiny five year old girl, with big blue eyes and wavy blond hair.
"Seven?" Naomi asked, not sure who the girl was.
"My name's not Seven." The girl responded in a sweet giggle. "My name is Annika."
Right! Seven's human name!
"Sorry!"
"Can I come with you?"
Naomi smiled, thinking that this might be what she used to sound like to Seven.
"Sure!"
---
"Your behavior is inappropriate." The now eight year old Tuvok pleaded, trying to get the four year old Kathryn and Chakotay out of the kitchen.
"We're making soup!" Chakotay explained, slopping a bunch of ingredients into a large pot. Kathryn wrinkled her nose at the smell of it.
"You are wasting food." Tuvok's attempts were failing and he returned to his spot against the wall, feeling defeated.
"You look like an elf!" Tommy looked at the Vulcan and laughed. Tuvok ignored the three year old.
"Beep! Beep!" Neelix yelled hopping around the room.
"I want my mommy!" Harry wailed from somewhere else inside the room.
Tuvok slumped farther into his chair. There was no way to control this group.
---
"Computer, display the last of the ships logs." Naomi Wildman had spent the whole day in Janeway's ready room, studying all recorded logs aboard the ship, trying to learn how Voyager operates. She had to get the ship out of the Nebula before its crew became nonexistent.
She hadn't learned too much, but it was enough. By now she knew the basics of flying and engineering.
Naomi looked over at Annika. The four year old had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on a chair. Naomi sighed and picked up the sleeping child, carrying her on to the bridge and placing her gently in the Captain's chair.
"I hope I can do this," Naomi muttered to herself as she slipped into Lieutenant Tom Paris' chair. She stared blankly at the consoles for a moment. "Here goes nothing!"
She keyed in the codes to make the ship fly forward at a slow speed. Voyager only shuttered. Naomi tried again at a faster speed, but it only made the ship shudder even more.
"Naomi?" A sleepy voice asked. "Whatcha doing?"
Naomi turned around. Annika was sitting up, wiping sleep away from her eyes.
"Trying to get us out of here, but I don't understand. I gave the right commands."
"Try again. You can do it!" Annika smiled. A big, adorable smile that spread across her whole face. Naomi smiled back and keyed in the commands again, this time sending the ship to warp. At first nothing happened. Not even a slight quiver, but as Naomi went to try once more, Voyager violently rocked forward, sending Annika flying out of the Captain's chair and Naomi head first into the console. In a daze she fell to the bridge floor, blackness falling over her.
---
Janeway opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor, Chakotay leaning over her. She looked around as he helped her up. The bridge was dark, but otherwise normal. The other officers were also waking up and staggering to their feet.
"Damage report, Mr. Tuvok!"
"Shields are at 100%, Captain. There doesn't appear to be any damage to the ship. However-"
"-All holodeck systems, replicators, weapons, and engines are off line." Janeway said, oddly remembering having this conversation before.
"Precisely, Captain!"
"Does anyone else have a very clear sensation of déja-vu?" The Captain asked with curiosity. All the officers present on the bridge nodded.
Captain Janeway looked out at the viewscreen, the nebula still lay before them.
"Captain, we're being hailed!" Harry Kim paused in confusion. "By the nebula!"
"The nebula?" The Captain hesitated. "On screen?"
As Kim keyed in the commands, the viewscreen filled with a jade green haze that seemed to twinkle and slowly, gracefully dance around.
"Do not be afraid!" It was the sound of a thousand soothing voices, gently whispering. A sound as sweet as country wind blowing amongst the leaves. "We mean no harm!"
"Who are you?" Janeway asked, feeling overly curious about the new lifeforms.
"We are the Moina. Like you, we are explorers. We take species and examine them. We learn their way of life, their language, their technology, but most importantly the way they act."
"When we entered the nebula, several of my crew disappeared."
It was all coming back. The disappearances, the changes. Everything that had happened the past few days flashed back into her mind.
"Do not worry. We have safely returned them. We have already studied their kind and do not need anymore information. We have never encountered humans before. Tell us, how did you manage to find yourselves way out here?"
Janeway smiled.
"It's a long story."
---
"Computer, start recording. Naomi Wildman's person log...number 1. The Moina turned out to be a very interesting and talented species. They fixed our ship and even helped us get a little closer to home.
"Captain Janeway has given me permission to keep my own logs now. Somehow, she heard about what I did. I guess the Moina told her. She was very impressed. She even said I would make a good Captain someday.
"Everybody says they remember what happened...mostly. I got a sneak peek at what everyone was like as a child and I feel closer to everyone then I ever had been before, especially to Seven.
---
"Naomi Wildman!" Seven of Nine briefly looked up from her work to see who had come through the Astrometric's door.
Naomi smiled and wrapped her arms around the former Borg. Seven looked down at the child.
"What was that for?"
"Just for being you!"
The End
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